Above the docks, the cranes loomed like metal sentinels, their long arms slicing through the mist. Somewhere in that labyrinth of containers, the Golden Team waited. He could almost taste their defiance.
“They think they fight for justice,” he said to no one in particular. “But justice is only power wearing a prettier mask.”
A faint burst of static came through his earpiece—Cyclone’s blackout grid shorting his comms. Clever. He admired that kind of audacity.
He drew his pistol, the motion graceful, almost reverent. “Let’s show them what it costs to cross Hydra.”
Then he lifted his hand.
Dozens of headlights snapped on at once, cutting through the darkness in blinding white. The night erupted with motion—engines revving, boots striking pavement, men shouting orders in three languages.
Somewhere out there, Beckett was watching, waiting for this exact moment.
And Viktor couldn’t wait to meet him.
79
Beckett
The night exploded in white.
Floodlights slammed on, burning through the dark, cutting across the office windows like fire. I hit the floor beside the boy and dragged Elara down with me. The glass behind us shattered, a rain of shards sparking off the concrete.
“Positions!” River barked.
The team moved instantly—muscle memory, instinct, and madness all rolled into one. Oliver and Gage were already outside, using the burning trucks as cover. Cyclone’s voice came through our comms in bursts of static:
“South lane compromised—two dozen inbound from the pier. You’ve got armored vans blocking your exit. I’m rerouting the evac truck—thirty seconds.”
Thirty seconds in a fight like this was an eternity.
I rose to a crouch, peering through the smoke curling from the blown window. Men were advancing in a half-circle formation—disciplined, deliberate, not thugs but soldiers. Hydra’s best. And standing behind them, calm as a priest before mass, was Viktor.
Elara saw him too. Her breath hitched, the recognition in her eyes sharp as glass.
“Stay with me,” I said.
“I’m not leaving.”
River cracked off the first shot, and the docks turned into hell. Bullets slammed into steel containers, sparks skittering across the ground. Gage’s laughter echoed somewhere to the left—wild, bright, and terrifyingly alive. Oliver’s rifle spoke in controlled bursts, each shot clean, surgical.
I grabbed Elara’s shoulder. “We move on my mark—cover the civilians, then push east to the trucks.”
She nodded once, jaw tight. The kid clung to her leg, silent and shaking, and she leaned down just long enough to whisper, “Hold on to me, and don’t let go.”
When the next burst came, we ran.
The air tasted like gunpowder and salt. I fired on the move, dropping two men near the crates and another at the edge of the pier. River threw a smoke grenade that swallowed the dock in a gray haze. We slipped through it like ghosts.
“Cyclone, where’s that damn truck?”
“Ten meters out,” he said through the comm. “You’ve got company—Viktor’s closing in from the north ramp.”
“Of course he is.”
We reached the last stretch of open ground, the evac truck idling behind a stack of shipping containers. The driver—one of Cyclone’s contacts—had his eyes wide and one hand white-knuckled on the wheel. I pushed Elara forward. “Get them in—now!”
She hauled the woman and boy into the truck, slammed the door, and turned back. I expected her to stay put. She didn’t.
